Acceptance

It is what it is, I suppose.

I went 18 days without smoking cigarettes. The first two days I used a patch, after that I 'cold-turkeyed'. I was doing well until recently. Maybe not as well as I thought.

Nothing is good enough for me. I'm trying real fucking hard to make up for all that time I lost in my life getting high. Pushing myself too fucking hard in an attempt to be someone I think I am. Now at 101 days completely abstinent I am also completely miserable.

I work out hard and i was jogging. I've made significant gains in muscle and tone. It isn't good enough.

I eat healthy and avoid eating for pleasure. I have a flat stomach now with those abs I hear women like. It isn't good enough.

The past coupla days I've been internally violent. I've had thoughts of cutting, burning and suicide. I've considered using again. I've been wanting to hurt people.

This isn't me, man, it just fucking ISN'T. I'm looking for acceptance through other things but my own. I fail in accepting me for me. I get hard on myself wondering why women like me for reasons other than what I want them to like me for.

Folks at work last night mentioned that they were worried about me. That I'm trying to do too much at once. That my personality has changed significantly. I smoked a cigarette and felt MUCH better.

I just bought a pack because i'm tired of feeling this and feel i'm not ready or willing to be miserable right now.

It sucks. After 16 days of not having nicotine in my system, I know its all psychological. All that discomfort and suffering was almost for nothing now.

All I we really want is to feel good about ourselves, right? Well, I need these fucking cigarettes right now to temporarily feel good and 'distract' and kill these new feelings of self-disgust.

I need to just relax and roll with it.

 

Then do it. Being able to motivate yourself to keep pushing is a very valuable skill, but, like everything, can be over done.

It's not just a matter of relaxing, but also of recognizing that you've done a LOT already, and in record time to boot. So, instead of quitting smoking, you've drastically cut down your use. One or two cigs a week is a huge improvement, and might be a good place to maintain for a little bit. Even just going down to one a day is a big first step. Not everything has to be done in an all-or-nothing manner. In fact, for most people, the all-or-nothing approach is basically doomed to fail. You've done a lot with it, and that's amazing, but different situations require different approaches.

And c'mon, you've got to take at least a bit of pleasure out of eating. Not to the point of medicating yourself with food of course. But then again, I may be a bit biased on that point

 

Youu gotta cut yourself some slack od. You will quit when you're ready........you don't want to overwhelm yourself and take on too much at one time.......
Good for you on the working out and fighting off the urge to use.
Cigarettes are hard hard hard to quit, i know.......even when you think you've got it down, you just don't ( myself).
When you have more clean time under your belt, try again......

 

thanks guys... i know what the 'exact' nature of my issues are at the moment and I don't like it so i need to change what I'm looking for.

Basically, I'm looking for validation from others when, ultimately, i need to be okay with me at the moment. Self-acceptance. I NEED to go easy and not beat myself up striving for perfection. The 'perfection' goal isn't even really for me. Its simply so I can find a mate (fucking shallow). I have this perception of what women want in a man and I am probably wrong.

Shit, I was telling dude at work that my goal was to become a 'butter face'. fucking hell!!!! Vanity, insecurity and loneliness are a horrible cocktail

 

Quitting cigarettes is more than just quitting nicotine. There are several psychoactive drugs in cigarettes that act as an MAOI.

This is why quitting cigarettes is so hard.

It is not unheard of people experiencing the level of akathisia upon cessation of cigarettes.

I think the important thing is that you are still clean. That is a *big* step. :D

Also, high five for toning up! It sounds like you are trying really hard to achieve all of your goals. It's OK that you have achieved them all, minus one.

As long as you still want to quit, you can!

I know someone who always smoked 2 to 3 packs per day at a minimum; they tried quitting and that didn't even last a full 2 hours before the withdrawal was too much for them.

You made it a full sixteen days, not sixteen minutes, not sixteen hours, but sixteen days.

I hope you can see that you still have a phenomenal amount of will power and self restraint to make it that far!!!

This is just my 2 cents... but I think you are in a state of transition. You are transitioning between two different self images. You are going from one where you are unsatisfied with being drug dependent and unhappy with your body in general.... to a self image where you are no longer even casually using drugs, and where you are completely happy with your body in general.

Imagine it's like a highway. You are on one side of the country, and you are moving to the other.

Symbolically, I think you packed your car, drank a large coffee, and sped 100 mph + as far as you could go. When you didn't get to the other coast when you wanted to, this caused you to feel not as great as you were planning to. I think also the cessation of tobacco entirely was like a speed bump. You drove over the speed bump too fast, and now one tire is flat.

What I mean is that when you transition self images, you take it in baby steps. Symbolically, this would be driving the speed limit, fixing the flat tire, and spending a night's rest in a near by city so as to get some rest, relax, recuperate, adapt to a slightly but not completely changed self image, so that the next morning you can start travelling down the road again, but this time you are well rested, well fed, and you are looking forward to the next city on the map, which is just a pit stop on the way to your final destination.

These small steps we take in adjusting to a new self image will allow ourselves to gradually become accustomed to change.

I believe the amount of change you put yourself through was immense. Also, without the pit -stops, the change was not gradual but instantaneous, hence not comfortable.

In a sense you are becoming familiarized and comfortable and secure to the new and improved OverDone v2.0

This is something many of us do when we work on changing our self images, myself included.

 

^wow... this actually kind of hits the nail on the head. Thank you! It definitely gives perspective and helps me realize some things.